


Five times George made the kill shot (and one time she didn't)

by umadoshi (Ysabet)



Category: Newsflesh Trilogy - Mira Grant
Genre: Adopted Sibling Relationship, Canon Disabled Character, Codependency, Community: fic_promptly, Gen, POV Alternating, POV Female Character, POV First Person, Pre-Canon, Spoiler Warnings in Notes, Spoilers vary from chapter to chapter (see notes), Wordcount: 10.000-30.000, Zombies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-01
Updated: 2012-11-01
Packaged: 2017-11-17 13:07:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 11,719
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/551888
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ysabet/pseuds/umadoshi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>When I go out into the field with Shaun, the plan is rarely for me to engage directly with whatever zombies he rustles up. I'm there for other reasons: to provide backup in case something goes wrong, to get him additional camera angles, to yell at him for playing too dangerously, and to give him a live audience. He'd be a lousy Irwin if he couldn't entertain himself just fine on his own, but he's happier with company and happiest if it's me.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Written for a prompt (see title) at fic_promptly on Dreamwidth.
> 
> SPOILER NOTES: This is a set of six fairly short stories. The first five are all set at various points before _Feed_ and have no series spoilers. The sixth is set between _Feed_ and _Deadline_ and includes major spoilers for _Feed_ , plus some implications about _Deadline_ (although nothing that can't be extrapolated from how _Feed_ wraps up). If you're avoiding those spoilers, please skip the final chapter.
> 
> Not exactly a beta credit, but Scruloose helped me work through some logistics, which is much appreciated.

**1\. SHAUN: Licensing prep (2036)**

"I feel ridiculous," George said, holding position a few feet behind me while I wrangled our new undead friend for her. It's a delicate art, wrangling. Killing the lone zombie? Easy. Holding the lone zombie at bay? Also easy. Herding the lone zombie, leaving it freedom of movement while getting it where you want it? Comparatively boring, but a harder skill to refine. You have to be precise and patient and meticulous.

It was exactly the kind of thing George would probably be great at once she got some up-close-and-personal experience under her belt, if she felt any inclination to practice. Me, I can do precise and meticulous, but patient? Only if there's a damn good reason--like making sure my sister passed her licensing exams at the same time I did.

"There you go," I said, once I had the zombie in position. "One nice juicy shambler on a stick."

"Lucky me." There was an edge to her reply that would have gotten my back up if it had actually been directed at me. "No nice dessicated ones around, huh?"

"Did you _want_ people saying you got off easy?" At the edge of my peripheral vision I saw her frown in a way that meant she would've smacked me if I weren't the one holding said juicy shambler at a distance. A short distance.

If anyone wanted to pitch a fit about me being the one out there with her, they could. We were still a few weeks shy of our nineteenth "birthday" and being able to test for our A-class licenses. It grated on both of us that we didn't already have them; our registered birthdate was pulled out of thin air in the name of writing something on our adoption documentation, and it's based on a conservative estimate of _my_ age. It was--just barely--possible I wasn't nineteen yet. George most definitely was. If that several-week gap between her actual age and the one on her file had ever prevented her from voting or something, I think she might've had an aneurysm from sheer rage. Or maybe she would've killed our parents for having us registered with the same date, which probably made some kind of sense to them at the time. It's hard to say.

Anyway, until we got those new licenses there was no way in hell we were supposed to be in the field unsupervised, so Mom was monitoring us--from as far away as an extremely liberal interpretation of the law allowed. Technicalities aside, I had loads of field experience and knew exactly what I was doing, and even Mom grasped that if _she_ tried to make sure George was ready it wouldn't end well for anyone. While "keeping tabs on us", she was probably busy drafting a post about how great it was that her studious daughter was showing an interest in the more thrilling side of life. Fine with us, as long as it kept her at a distance and she signed off on the forms to let George take her practicals.

Problem was, that was only going to happen if George took control of the situation, and she was making no move to take the stick. "I've watched you do it enough times," she said, sounding kind of like it was an imposition that the licensing board wouldn't just accept my experience for both of us.

"Yeah, I know you have." I was starting to wonder if she was being difficult out of revenge for all the times I'd rolled my eyes when she was the one doing the teaching.

The zombie made a disgruntled noise, as if to say we should be paying more attention to its attempt to eat us. Too bad for it that it wasn't part of a pack, which meant it currently had all the intelligence of a snail. I'd done an excruciatingly boring sweep of the area to make sure we wouldn't be getting any surprise visitors, and it was on its own. I could've literally held it off with my eyes closed.

"Look," I said. "We both know Mom'll have to come out with you if she decides I'm doing a crap job. Take a minute to focus." Before George could respond, I set my cameras to start looping footage of our surroundings from the last couple of minutes. Nothing much was moving. If Mom was watching closely, she'd notice--she taught me how to do it, after all--but we had 50-50 odds that she was only keeping half an eye on us as long as we didn't raise an alarm. "Feeds are off for a sec," I said. "You know we don't have to do this now, right?"

"It's fine."

"George, don't mess with me. You're obviously not happy about this." Her jaw set. That didn't bother me much; what I didn't like was the tension in her temples when she turned to me. Migraine, either full-blown or well on its way. Fucking grade-A timing, that, but not surprising. The day had turned out brighter than we'd hoped, and her sunglasses are good, but not perfect. The light getting in around them had to be skewering her eyes--and her mood with them.

"I'm getting this on the first try," she said, tight-voiced. "I am _not_ giving her an excuse for the 'Newsies and Irwins have different skill sets, darling' speech."

"Okay," I said. There was plenty in there we should've hashed out before coming this far, but I had to get the feeds back on. "I hear you. Just...work with me, all right?" I switched back to filming and waited.

After a pause, she took the stick from me with her right hand and just held it, pushing back against the zombie while she assessed its resistance. It reached out for her, fingers groping mindlessly just out of reach of her hand. I bit my tongue on the urge to coach her. I was right there with a pistol in my hand and a rifle on my back, and she knew what she was supposed to be doing. Hell, she could probably parrot back every word I'd be saying. What mattered was her getting the feel for it.

"Okay." George sucked in a deep breath. "Is that enough poking now? Can I finish?"

I didn't try to keep from laughing. A bit of the tension dropped out of her shoulders while she gave me the finger with her free hand.

She knew as well as I did that the actual poking was an Irwin ritual, not a pre-licensing requirement. If we bailed now, it'd still look fine--she was barely outside the zombie's reach and not losing her cool at all. She'd been certified for basic firearms since we were twelve, so she had nothing to prove on that front. But it wouldn't count as anything, officially, until she proved she could make herself pull the trigger.

For a lot of people it takes several tries. No matter how many times you watch someone else take a zombie down, in person or on screen, the reality of "this shambling thing used to be a living human" hits home in a whole new way when you're the one with the gun. I'd done it when we were fourteen, on one of the unofficial ventures I took with Mom that she couldn't blog about because she was breaking a ton of laws even having me with her. And George...hadn't, for reasons that had nothing to do with how capable she was and an awful lot to do with me being the only Irwin we knew who she could be even this vulnerable with. Mom had never been an option.

"It's your show," I said.

George nodded and shifted the stick to her left hand. The zombie's moans changed pitch as she drew her gun, almost drowning the sound of the safety clicking off. "Give me some room?"

"A little, yeah." I edged back, not liking it one bit. Having my sister near a zombie was one thing. Having her closer to the zombie than either of them was to me was something else entirely.

All I could do was check my camera angles to make sure I got good footage. That was what I was there for, other than making sure she got out alive.

"Right," George said, mostly to herself. She stared squarely at the zombie--still fresh enough to look almost human, other than its vacant eyes and jerky movements--and shoved it hard with the stick while she jumped back, putting an extra few feet between them. Before it could try to close the gap, she brought her pistol up, exhaled, and fired.

It wasn't a picture-perfect, right-between-the-eyes shot, but it was clean. One bullet between the left eye and the bridge of the nose did the job. The zombie toppled. George stood stock-still and watched, utterly expressionless.

An Irwin would have been-- _I_ would have been--grinning or bouncing with adrenaline-fueled excitement. Someone with a nervous trigger finger would have shot again, just to be sure.

And someone who wasn't Stacy Mason's daughter might have recoiled or even been sick at the way the motionless zombie, which had been a person less than a week before, was suddenly a person again, dead for the second and final time.

George isn't an Irwin, and she's not nervous, and she'll never, ever escape being our mother's daughter. She just gazed at the remains, and I don't think anyone in the world but me would have picked up on the mixed emotions her empty face was betraying.

When she'd looked enough, she flipped the safety back on her gun and holstered it. If she'd been showing even a trace of a smile or satisfaction, I would've been able to hug her with the cameras running. If I did it now, it'd look too much like she needed comfort or reassurance or something, and Mom would have words with us about it later.

I settled for saying, "Nice," simple but honest, as she came over to me.

George nodded, acknowledging the pride in my voice. "Can we go home now?"


	2. Chapter 2

**\-- GEORGIA: Licensing prep redux (2039)**

 

Buffy with a gun in her hand was one of the more incongruous things I'd ever seen.

It wasn't that she handled it worse than anyone else with relatively little experience--it's a bad idea to get me started on how many people make it to adulthood without learning how to do anything with a firearm other than shoot themselves in the leg--and over the past two weeks Shaun and I had coached her up from knowing only basic gun safety to being able to draw and shoot reasonably accurately without endangering anyone. That put her ahead of a staggering proportion of the population.

The incongruity was in her clothing as much as anything else. She'd turned up to the range with us in her usual bright colors, following our instructions about sensible boots and a high neckline--I have it on good authority that a hot bullet casing down the front of your shirt _sucks_. But for coming out to the field for her first "live ammo, live zombie" experience, she'd apparently raided someone's closet. It was easier to picture that than to think that she actually owned the plain turtleneck and reinforced jeans she was wearing. I might almost have been tempted to wonder if Shaun had simply raided _my_ wardrobe for the jeans, at least, but while I'm on the compact side, Buffy's got the bones of a hummingbird. My clothes would swim on her.

We'd reluctantly bowed to her stress levels and agreed not to film the venture. Shaun's certified to assess whether someone's ready to take their practical exams, so we didn't need any evidence other than his say-so. If he was happy with how things went, she could be standing next to an examiner within two days.

For reasons known only to her, Buffy had asked me to be the one right next to her. Shaun and I had shrugged and agreed, but we'd been puzzled. We all think differently enough that neither of us has an advantage when it comes to explaining things to her, and this whole thing was clearly Shaun's department, not mine, but we were willing to do whatever she thought would make her more relaxed.

At least, that had been my take on it before I'd spent nearly half an hour watching the zombie Shaun had corralled for her trying to get through the wire fence separating it from us. Buffy was trying not to freak out. I was trying not to fall asleep on my feet from boredom. If it wouldn't have made Shaun lose his shit at me--justifiably--I might have been tempted to pull up a patch of ground and make myself comfortable while I waited for her to get it together.

"You can do this," I said for at least the fifth time. She'd just shifted her gun into her left hand so she could wipe her right palm against her jeans. "I know it sucks. And I know the longer it takes, the more it feels like maybe you won't be able to shoot when you really need to. Don't think about that. It's amazing how much easier it is when you're actually in danger."

I tried to remember what it had been like to stand where she was, nearly in grabbing range and expected to get myself safely out of it for the first time. I hadn't been particularly scared. My childhood had left me far more familiar with zombies than any other teenager I knew but Shaun, who'd had years of both legal and under-the-radar field experience by the time he took me out.

I could have started as early as he did, if I'd been able to stomach the prospect of being stuck away from home with our mother calling every shot. No, thank you. While Shaun had spent his free time during those years exploring hazard zones with her, I'd spent mine attending conferences, covering local events and incidents, and starting to meticulously work towards the kind of reputation I wanted. Most nights we sacrificed hours of sleep to review each other's work, making sure we each knew exactly what the other was doing.

Before Shaun had started prepping me for my licensing tests, he'd warned me that the hardest part was how a dead zombie left a human corpse, and he'd been right. We'd tried to warn Buffy of the same thing. Looking at her face now, I wondered if we'd done too good a job.

"But she's _looking_ at me, Georgia," she said, her voice thin and wavering.

Dear God, I was going to die of old age right there and then _I'd_ be the zombie she got to practice on. " _It's_ looking at you because it's hungry, Buff. Now's not the time to think like a poet, okay? There's no shadow of a person in there crying out to you. Listen to the reptile part of your brain that's screaming 'Holy shit, that thing wants to eat me'."

"But she--"

"No. Stop." I shut my eyes, glad she couldn't see me doing it behind my sunglasses, and tapped my ear cuff to open a three-way connection. "Shaun, can you come down here and let our pet out? I think we need a new one."

He answered right away. "Aw, c'mon, George. I'm working on my tan."

Buffy made an unhappy sound. I threw a glance back and up to where Shaun was sprawled stomach-down on the roof of an abandoned nearby low-rise, scoped rifle in hand as he watched us. "He's just being an asshole," I said. "He knows if he goofs off here, _I'll_ tan his backside."

Shaun snickered in our ears. "Sure you will." Sobering, he added, "George's probably right, Buffy. You've been staring at it too long. I'll get you a new one."

"What'll happen to this one?" The question was very faint.

"I'll put it out of its misery," I said.

Shaun was already on the move, bounding down the steep three-storey fire escape until it ran out, a good ten feet off the ground. He stepped off the last rung as casually as reaching the bottom of a staircase and landed mid-stride, loping towards us. He'd slung the rifle across his back, but his hands were full: he had a modified pistol in one and a catchpole in the other. The latter works better than the traditional stick for holding zombies at bay, as long as you know what you're doing. Shaun doesn't usually bother. He only brings it out for the Irwin equivalent of wrapping a bow on a zombie and hand-delivering it--in other words, for training.

He didn't stop to talk to us. Instead, he ducked through the gate in the fence before the zombie could register him as fresh meat, looped the business end of the pole around its neck, and shepherded it out to our side of the fence, bringing it to a halt just in earshot.

"Why did you bring her--" Buffy caught my expression and hastily corrected herself. "Why did you bring it over here if you're just going to shoot it?"

"So the next one doesn't get frustrated and try to munch on it instead of us." I raised my voice. "Turn it loose, Shaun." He nodded and flipped the loop back over the zombie's head, backing towards us to get out of splatter range. Keeping his pistol ready, he kept luring it closer.

"Okay, Buffy, watch," I said. She gave me a fast, jerky nod, tracking their progress. She was still holding her gun; it was even still aimed in the zombie's direction. "Or you can take the shot yourself. If you do that, we can be done for today."

"What if I miss?"

"Doesn't matter. Shaun and I are right here."

"I--" The zombie was closing on us. I pulled my gun and flipped the safety off, letting Buffy see me do it. "Okay," she said.

The actual shot, when she finally took it, was perfectly credible. Her bullet hit the zombie's collarbone, which was enough to rock it back long enough for her to squeeze off three more shots. One missed entirely. One hit the sternum. And the third, wonder of wonders, went through the eye, which would probably make it that much harder for her to get to sleep that night, but took care of the problem nicely and gave her bragging rights in the process.

Shaun and I glanced at each other, ruing the lack of live feeds. He shrugged philosophically and activated his shoulder and hip cameras, circling around for some loving closeups of Buffy's final shot.

"Good," I said, putting my safety back on and tucking my gun away. "That was really good."

"It got too close."

"Nah," Shaun said, joining us. "Handguns are a bitch to aim at any kind of distance, especially if you're not used to them. You've gotta let the zombie get close enough to make it worth your bullet. But you can still change your mind and do your practicals with a rifle if you want."

Buffy shook her head, clearly trying not to look at--or think about--the zombie's remains. "Like you said before, I won't ever be carrying one around."

"Right. It's better to practice with the weapon you're gonna have at hand." He gave her one of his professional smiles, one that she knew as well as I did was designed to coax her into relaxing. It still helped. "Let's get out of here. You'll be hungry by the time we get back into town, so we can grab something to eat and work out tomorrow's training. Deal?"

She nodded. "Okay, as long as we get takeout. I'm not going out in public dressed like this."

"Sure thing." Shaun winked at her and turned to lead the way back to the van.

Buffy grabbed my arm before I could follow. "Thanks, Georgia," she said, letting me go again immediately. "I know that wasn't fun for you. I just...that's what I needed. Shaun would've enjoyed it, and I--" She broke off, swallowing visibly. But she was still on her feet, and had done what we'd come to do. I was willing to call that a win.

"You know he wouldn't have treated it like a game with you, right?"

"I know." We started walking. "But _I'd_ still know that's what it is for him. So thank you."


	3. Chapter 3

**2\. SHAUN: Cleanup run (2038)**

 

We live in a pretty safe area--by our standards, anyway. Officially it's still considered "impossible to secure", but it's secure enough that local outbreaks are rare. Rare and _awesome_ , for the most part. This one had happened only a couple miles from the house, which meant it was just far enough away that we probably wouldn't see anyone we knew among the fresh zombies and close enough for us to get there before anyone scooped us. We were all home, and the first thing I knew about it was Mom shouting up the stairs to me. "You in?" I'd asked George.

She'd waved me away. "Not right now, but keep me in the loop. I can head over if anything happens that I should see."

It was the right call. There was nothing unusual about the outbreak, which was a textbook demonstration of why so many people never leave their homes: some old dude at a restaurant keeled over from a heart attack during the down period in the afternoon, and no one noticed until his waiter eventually wandered by to offer him a coffee refill and got bitten for his trouble.

On a good day it would've stopped there, but luck was against the twenty-odd folks in the vicinity who died and started wandering around. It was also against all the businesses in the area, which'd be suffering for a couple weeks while locals got up the nerve to venture out again.

Local police have good response times, so Mom and I mostly did straight reporting, heading into the restaurant to help map the outbreak's trajectory. The main excitement was putting down the poor son of a bitch who'd amplified and then gotten locked in the walk-in fridge by some quick-thinking co-worker. Mom was pleased as punch to have me there, since we hadn't had a mother-and-son venture in ages and she's always loved showing me off. It was kind of irritating, but at least when she got too vocal about it I had George on the line to help me tune her out.

It was routine to the point that George decided to cut a deal with Mom. Talking through me, which made things smoother, she offered Mom my footage and commentary to supplement her report on the outbreak, rather than me doing a competing post, in exchange for a consult on a security upgrade I'd been wanting to make to our van. It was a good bargain all around, since our parents were still milking us for every bit of family dynamic they could get, and we were giving them less every year.

Mom made a show of being offended that we wanted a recorded verbal contract to sign off on, but given that they'd spent twenty years teaching us to haggle by example, she didn't have much ground to stand on. I could almost sympathize when it came to dealing with George's freakish glee over subclauses, but she comes by it honestly. Mom could take _that_ up with Dad, not take it out on us.

Negotiations concluded, George said, "Want me to come down to help with cleanup?"

I had to stop and think about it. Cleanup is revolting, and worse, it's haunting. I do it whenever I can, which isn't actually all that often, since most of my action is in hazard zones that don't get that kind of treatment. One thing Mom's drilled into both me and George--but especially me--is that Irwins, more than other journalists, owe that kind of help if we're on hand. If we're going to walk into the ruins of people's lives and smile for the camera while we literally play with their dead, pitching in afterwards is the bare minimum we can do. It's one of the few areas where I can honestly say our mother acts like a decent human being.

That all meant there was no question Mom and I would be staying, but George was still safe and clean at home. If she came to help she'd have to go through full-on decontamination, which would suck, and it'd be a picnic compared to the rest of the night's work.

"You don't have to," I said.

"I didn't ask if you think I _ought_ to come, dumbass," she replied. "I asked if you want me there. Or are you okay partnering with Mom for the duration?"

"I'd manage," I said. It was true. It was also beside the point. On the other end of the line, I could already hear rustles and clicks as George started gearing up. "I so don't deserve you."

"Tell me something I don't know. I'll be there in fifteen." She hung up, and I went to get our assignment. The cop coordinating the cleanup operation raised an eyebrow when I asked her to clear my sister to come into the quarantined area, but she wasn't about to turn away an extra pair of qualified hands. By the time George arrived I was ready to wave her over and more than happy to relieve her of the sweater and coffee she'd brought down for me. She made a snarky comment about my inability to dress myself, which I ignored, and squeezed my wrist in passing, which I didn't.

In the time it took me to chug the coffee so we could get to work, the sun went down. The darkness should have made her especially useful, but one of our rules is that, barring emergency, George keeps her sunglasses on when we're around strangers, even if she might technically not need them. Her night vision isn't worth the risk of some overzealous twit noticing her eyes and jumping to conclusions.

When coordinators see our credentials, they usually put us on body detail. While other people are doing the chemical equivalent of salting and torching the earth, we're looking for corpses or zombies--human or otherwise--that've slipped through the cracks, or any animals that need to be dealt with. If we're lucky, that means we only wind up putting down a few raccoons or squirrels. Most of the time, though, we don't get away without carrying at least one virus-ridden human corpse to the designated location for identification and/or incineration.

Despite her sunglasses, George was still the one who caught the movement in an alley. She pointed and waited until I saw it too before she headed in, with me just a step behind her.

Turned out it wasn't our lucky night. The movement belonged to what was left of a zombie that had been hit by a police grenade. It was no longer in a position to drag itself, never mind walk, and the throat had taken enough damage that it wasn't moaning. The fact that it hadn't bled out long ago, no matter how much the virus coagulated the blood, was a testament to the resilience of even the most infected human body.

I've got limits. They're way, way higher than your average person's, because that's my nature _and_ my job, but there's a line, and beyond that line there's no way to think of it as a game. There's just not, unless you shut down some fundamental part of your humanity so hard there's no way to come back from it. I've met people who've done that. One or two of them were other Irwins, and maybe they'd been good journalists once, but they weren't anymore. They weren't much of anything anymore--just a different kind of walking dead.

I'm also not what you'd call religious. The only higher powers I answer to are my sister, the cameras, and the ratings, in that order. But sometimes I come across something that hits me deep in a way I can't explain, hits my limits too hard and knocks me for a loop. If I'm filming I can focus on _that_ and keep going. Even if I can't keep the change in my mood hidden, it lets me finish the report. Maybe I wind up going home sick and shaken, but I've never, ever frozen up with a live feed running.

We had nothing at all running when we walked into that alley. Without the cameras to push me, I took one look at the ruined, pitiful thing on the ground and stopped in my tracks, suddenly struggling to breathe through the crushing sensation in my lungs. I kill zombies in creative ways, but I do it _fast_. Nothing should wind up like what we were looking at, even if it's technically already dead and beyond pain.

George glanced over her shoulder at me, looking as nauseated as I felt. Whatever she was opening her mouth to say, she changed gears when she saw my face. "I've got it, Shaun." Before I could try to protest, she'd put two bullets clean through the zombie's brain.

The twitching stopped. I could breathe again.

Once I could get moving, we brought the remains--a guy maybe our age, maybe a year or two older--back to the central location. We went back out and dealt with a handful of small mammals. We ignored Mom when she tried to talk to us. We got sterilized within an inch of our lives and transmitted that information home so we wouldn't have to get decontaminated _again_. And finally, around daybreak, we were able to leave. George had brought her bike down instead of our van, and it was faster to hop on behind her and let her drive than to fight about whether I should have the keys.

"Go to bed," she said when we were inside and upstairs, like she thought I might actually buy that she'd shrugged off the night's awfulness and leave her alone with it.

"Uh, no. Not happening."

George looked like she wanted to argue, but she was pale-lipped and sweating, too tired to stay in control now that no one but me could see. I checked the locks on our bedroom doors before following her into our bathroom, where I sat on the floor beside her and rubbed her back while she was sick. It might've been easier on her if she'd been able to puke in the alleyway--we've both done it--but there'd been no chance in hell of her letting that happen where Mom might pass by and see.

She was paying for it now. I got her to drink water twice so there'd be something for her to throw up, to make it hurt a little bit less, and because it was the only thing I could do to help. One of us getting sick out on cleanup is one thing. Being with her behind closed doors is a lot different, because there's nothing else for either of us to pay attention to. It's one of the few situations where I consciously notice she's not crying--I _know_ how involuntary tearing up is at times like that, if you've got functional tear ducts.

When she was able to keep water down, she asked, "Can I sleep with you?"

We both knew I'd say yes. It didn't keep the relief off her face when I nodded.

We helped each other up, neither of us at all steady on our feet, and took turns brushing our teeth as if it were a normal night. But normal nights don't start or end with George in my bed, ever. Sometimes she passes through in the wee hours of the morning if there's an idea she needs to mull over, but she doesn't stay. It's like being visited by a succubus--if succubi were into using sleeping dudes as sounding boards instead of stealing their life force or whatever.

She hit the bed before me, still fully dressed in her sterilized-beyond-clean clothes. Unlike her, I had to muster the energy to take my shirt off to get at the body armor underneath. There's sleeping in your clothing, and then there's being ridiculous; I'd have to be unconscious on my feet to sleep in armor anywhere but in a van surrounded by zombies, and I wasn't that fried. Not quite.

By the time I joined her, her sunglasses were on my bedside table and she'd stolen the pillow I usually sleep with, leaving me the second one I keep for when I want to prop my head up to read. She was huddled like she was already asleep, face buried in my pillow and my blanket bundled around her. I know the feeling. It's one of the reasons I like sleeping in _her_ bed, burrowing right down into the smell of her.

I switched the lights off and touched her shoulder. "I'm right here."

"I know." She rolled over to face me but didn't come closer. Instead she reached for my hand and tugged it to her chest, weaving her fingers through mine.

We almost never say we love each other. Partly it feels too much like a jinx, and partly we aren't much into stating the obvious. We might as well say, "Guess what? I just took a breath. And another one. And another one."

"Hey," I said anyway, squeezing her hand. "I love you."

"I know," she said again, instead of echoing me. Funny thing, how hearing her say it felt even more unnecessary than usual after she'd stepped in like that to keep me from losing my shit. Sure, I mostly keep it together, even when things go bad, but that one or two percent of the time... It wasn't just the shot she'd spared me. It was having to go tell Mom that we were bailing, praying I could get through the hours of decon without freaking out, praying Mom didn't chew me out later, praying a lot of stuff to a God neither of us believes in.

I don't know why it makes it worse, being the one to actually take the shot once your guts start churning. Sometimes it doesn't; sometimes it just feels merciful. But usually? Usually after things are that bad it feels like something filthy sticking to your skin for days, as pervasive as the reek of the burning bodies and even harder to wash off.

"Fuck, George," I whispered. "I'm so sorry."

"I volunteered. If I have nightmares, I brought them on myself." Her fingers tightened. "And neither of us wants you to be the kind of person who never bats an eye no matter how bad it is."

She wasn't saying anything I hadn't already been telling myself, but hearing it from her was different. I deal in spectacle--honest spectacle, because she wouldn't have it any other way--and she deals in picking people apart to see what makes them tick. As long as George thinks I'm not heartless or dehumanized, then I'm not. It's that simple.

"Go to sleep," she said. "The sooner we sleep, the sooner we get to wake up from the first round of bad dreams. It's all uphill from there."


	4. Chapter 4

**3\. GEORGIA: Seeing through the dark (2037)**

 

"You know, I only found that moderately terrifying," I said. "I bet that isn't a great sign for my mental health."

Shaun scoffed in my ear. "Maybe it means you're developing a sense of adventure. Or--dare I say it--fun."

"Apparently you dare."

Despite Shaun's feelings on the subject, I was comfortable with my position: venturing into a pre-Rising parking garage to look for zombies probably wouldn't be considered "fun" by any reasonable person, and even for him, it struck me as overly suicidal. He'd had to pull up blueprints and recent surveillance footage to convince me, pointing out several evacuation routes that were far enough apart that no mob of the undead was going to be big enough to cover them all. If it started looking like there were enough to ambush us, we'd aim for the furthest exit.

Shaun had agreed to full body armor. He'd agreed to not go in unless we circled the entire exterior and set motion detectors. He'd agreed to stay on the first and second levels. He'd agreed to give me first crack at the shower for the next two weeks. In the face of so many concessions that we had to start writing them down--the ones we wanted a record of, anyway--I'd caved.

It's astonishing how many things he persuades me to do because he's practically dancing with excitement at the idea. I usually get out of routine expeditions _because_ they're routine, because I've managed to convince myself that he'll come back alive. It's the truly ludicrous notions I get sucked into. Somehow I keep finding myself tagging along to keep him company while he orchestrates his latest flamboyant brush with death.

Of course, coming up with those ideas is only half of what makes him a great Irwin. The other half is that he executes them with flair and survives to tell the tale.

The parking garage field trip went off without a hitch. We took the bike in, and we didn't go more than one level down--and we didn't need to. A small pack of zombies had taken refuge inside, enough to make things interesting for Shaun without bringing them up to maximum intelligence. I kept my keys in the ignition, my gun in my hand, and my back to the wall while he went to town, and against odds that most people would never take, we got out with our lives and some great footage.

The argument about whether it counted as "fun" was one we could rehash in our sleep, but our viewers don't seem to get tired of it, so we bickered absently right up until we started driving. The odds we'd use the material in the final report were slim, but it was still good to lay down an audio track in case it came in handy later.

The inevitable catch came on the way home, as if all the bad karma we'd earned by having everything go our way at the garage came home to roost with a vengeance. We'd lost track of time--not by much, but enough that the sun was closer to the horizon than we liked by the time we left. On top of that, the rain we'd been smelling in the air arrived sooner than we'd expected, which meant I had to drive just a bit slower on the way back to the van.

All in all, it was basically dark by the time we arrived and discovered the day had a _second_ pack of zombies in store. Shaun was so relaxed and pleased with the whole venture--and I couldn't blame him--that he didn't notice them until I swore and pulled the bike over, nearly a hundred yards from our goal.

"George, what the hell--" Then he was swearing too, because that was _not_ in the plan. Zombies don't usually go for unoccupied vehicles. Maybe these ones were so desperate that even the lingering scent of meat attracted them. None of them looked to be in great shape, and--fortunately for us--it was a small group, so the hunting probably sucked. That didn't mean they couldn't be trouble. They clearly had enough mass intelligence to grasp that "vehicle" could mean "dinner".

"I count four," Shaun said. He didn't sound confident about it, and rightly not. The sun had well and truly set behind the clouds; the rain wasn't too heavy yet, but it would be. We'd be in full darkness before we knew what hit us.

"I count six," I replied. Their heads were swiveling towards us and their moans were rising, signaling any others in earshot that dinner had just delivered itself. "Make that seven. I need to lose the headlight."

"Okay." He didn't argue, even though it meant taking his last real light source away. It wasn't enough to deter the zombies in the least, or enough to let him aim much past the glow. We both took a moment to make sure our cameras were on; it was too dark for them, technically, but more than once Buffy's proved that she can turn astonishingly dim footage into something workable.

Shaun let professional cockiness creep into his voice for the mic pickups. "Guess it's up to you to give the folks back home a good show, George."

There was nothing feigned about my irritation. "My day is complete."

We reached for our guns in unison. The zombies were moving, and thank God they were real shamblers. They were still closing much too fast for my liking. We were both tired enough that if my bike had had enough gas to get us home, or even to a truck stop, I would've considered voting to keep driving and come back for the van. Too bad the second spare gas can was _in_ the van.

Shaun squinted through the rain and fired off four shots. One zombie dropped like a stone. Another stumbled but kept coming. "Not good," he said. "You're up."

I killed the headlight. We traded places with the speed of long, long practice, putting him in the driver's seat in case we had no choice but to take off. I listened to how he was slowing his breathing, making it easier for me to do the same. My body knows to take cues from his without bothering to check in with my brain, and vice versa. In situations like these, that kind of visceral trust is priceless.

My long-range aim isn't as good as I wish it were, so I had to wait longer to shoot than he would have, if he'd been the one with the useful vision. I took those extra seconds to rip my sunglasses off and shove them deep into my pocket, giving myself a perfect, unobstructed view.

I even had a moment to enjoy the sensation of having nothing covering my eyes. With no light I needed to hide from and no lenses to catch the rain, I could see practically forever. It's such a shame we have real bogeymen to worry about. If I could spend more time outside without being in any pain at all, I might be tempted to leave my room more often.

"We've got plenty of ammo," Shaun murmured as the zombies closed on us. "I've got another clip right here, and I'm ready to drive if they get too close." He didn't have to say that he was still ready to shoot as soon as they got in range for him.

"Got it." I leaned into him for stability, sighted my first shot, and squeezed the trigger. The zombie Shaun had wounded collapsed. Five left. I breathed in and fired; breathed out and fired again.

Four left. I was averaging two shots per zombie, and couldn't remember how many rounds were in my gun. That was fine with Shaun there--he has an almost eidetic feel for how many shots have been fired, whether they're his or someone else's. I swapped in the fresh clip on his count and kept going.

Three left. Then two, until we saw the third getting back up. I put it down with a shot I'd be proud of in the morning.

The last two got close enough that Shaun could see them, if not very clearly. I saw a bullet go through a cheek, maybe into the actual jawbone. "An inch higher," I said. He adjusted his aim. The pair of zombies fell almost in unison as we both fired, leaving us surrounded by the sound of rain, the thick smell of gunpowder, and the blessed absence of moaning.

"Do not say that was awesome." I sagged back onto the passenger seat, shaking with reaction. "It was not awesome."

"Can I say _you_ were awesome?" Shaun was shivering too, but in his case it was because he hadn't dressed warmly enough for a rainy night. He'd be fine once he got in the van, but it made me glad I'd dressed more sensibly; my drive home was going to be unpleasant enough without freezing to death.

"That's always acceptable." I steadied my breathing against his again. "Think we got any usable footage?" One of these days we were really going to have to invest in a night-vision camera. Shaun tends not to go out at night because he hates wearing infrared goggles even more than regular protective ones--and because he's not actually stupid--but the camera wouldn't have to be covering half of his face.

"Let's find out at home," he said. "Two packs of zombies is enough for one day."

"Even for you? _Please_ tell me that sentence got recorded for posterity."

"I don't like to be greedy, George," he said piously.

I choked on a laugh and started rummaging in the saddlebag for a pair of testing units so we could get the hell out of there. Whether or not Shaun had truly had his fill, I'd more than met my quota of "fun" for the day.


	5. Chapter 5

**4\. GEORGIA: Close call (2038)**

 

When I go out into the field with Shaun, the plan is rarely for me to engage directly with whatever zombies he rustles up. I'm there for other reasons: to provide backup in case something goes wrong, to get him additional camera angles, to yell at him for playing too dangerously, and to give him a live audience. He'd be a lousy Irwin if he couldn't entertain himself just fine on his own, but he's happier with company and happiest if it's me.

The closest call I've ever had in my life came when the zombies we'd found had a few more friends than we'd thought--enough to give them the collective smarts to get between us. We were still close enough together that I saw Shaun's face change when he realized how they'd been herding us. His smile didn't waver, but his eyes widened and then hardened. I heard the faint beep that meant he'd just set all of our audio recorders to keep going but dump the results in a separate location from the video feed, so there was no chance of it getting out accidentally.

Only two of the zombies were focused on me, which was two too many. They had me off balance, and they were fresh and fast. I shot one of them in the face, confusing but not killing it, and then the second one was right there in front of me, mouth opening. I realized what it was going to do only an instant before it spat a mouthful of blood in my face.

That instant was enough for me to take a desperate breath and tilt my head down before the blood hit me. My safety goggles kept it out of my eyes, but it slicked across the lenses so I couldn't see, never mind aim. I didn't dare open my mouth.

The zombie was so close that the muzzle of my gun touched its head when I fired blind, hesitating only to listen and make sure Shaun hadn't somehow gotten on the other side of it. More blood misted across my neck as the moaning stopped, leaving...the moaning of the zombie I _hadn't_ killed, and the sound of the ones closer to Shaun. I wasn't going to get another lucky shot.

I've never heard Shaun shoot so fast in our lives. In the time it took me to make that shot, he went through what sounded like a full clip. I heard him running, even though there were still moans coming from that direction. "Georgia, do _not_ move!"

After that, my memory collapses in on itself, leaving only the sounds of Shaun moving. I kept my head down and held as still as I could. No matter how level-headed I am, this was his turf in a way it could never be mine--and more importantly, he could see. He was better equipped to save me if I _could_ be saved.

I remember a flurry of noise only a few feet from me, Shaun doing something I couldn't parse by sound, and then a gunshot. Later, eyes daring me to chew him out, he'd tell me that he'd simply grabbed the zombie closing in on me, using his own momentum to turn and shove the thing away from me before he finished it off.

I remember his hand coming to rest on my back, where there was no blood. "Don't move," he kept saying. "There's still a few coming. Take the shallowest breaths you can. _Don't move._ I've got you." The next series of shots was louder, and not only because they were coming from right beside me. He'd switched weapons rather than taking the time to reload.

Beyond the ringing in my ears, there was sudden silence as the last of the moaning stopped. "Okay," Shaun said, and now I could hear what it was costing him to keep his voice steady. "George, is there _any_ blood in your mouth?" I gave him the most minuscule headshake I could and shut my eyes. My vision was useless as long the blood-smeared goggles were on, and complete darkness was more comforting than the rusting red haze.

"I need to get to the bike and get the field kit," he said. "There's no blood right under your nose, okay? But it's a bit close on the right side. Show me your gloves." I held my hands out. There was the sound of a zipper and then tearing fabric. "I think they're clean, but here." He peeled my gloves off and wrapped cloth around one of my bare fingers. "Pinch that nostril closed and just breathe through the left side. Shallow breaths. Slow. Can you do that?" I made an affirmative sound and did what he'd said. "Can you kneel without help? The ground's level, and I shouldn't--I shouldn't touch you too much right now." _Because you're covered in blood._

I nodded again and knelt carefully, glad to feel the solid ground under me. I wasn't quite lightheaded, but I wasn't far off. "I'll be right back." His voice ached with strain. "Five minutes, tops."

Shaun hardly ever runs flat-out in the field. If he needs to escape that badly, he's also got a gun or two in play, and running at top speed makes aiming basically impossible. I only know how fast he is from watching him on the tracks at the health center near home, where we routinely schedule times to exercise in ways we can't at home. And my brother can _run_. I'd counted less than four minutes before he was back beside me, breathing hard and already digging through the field kit.

"Take a good breath," he ordered. "As much as you can. I'm starting with rubbing alcohol." We keep the stuff in a spray bottle for fast application, and Shaun must have emptied half of it onto me after I gave him the thumbs-up, starting with my hair and working down over my face. "Now I'm getting your goggles off." He unbuckled them as he spoke, leaving me feeling more vulnerable than I liked.

Having my vision back made up for it. I kept my eyes fixed on Shaun's while he carefully swabbed the rest of the blood off my face and neck, liberally spraying more rubbing alcohol onto sterile wipes.

"I think that's it," he finally said, when he'd been over my face three times and it felt like there was nothing left he could possibly scrub off but my skin. He sounded almost calm. Calm was good. Calm meant he had reason to tell himself I'd be okay.

It also meant nothing until I'd been tested. I took a deep, precious breath, trying not to think about how dry my mouth felt, and said, "Shaun, I need--"

"I know." Fear was slipping into his voice. He stripped his gloves off--I tried not to think about the blood on them; there was none anywhere else on him that I could see--and picked up two testing units from where he'd upended the field kit a few feet away from any spatter. I caught the one he tossed to me, and a tiny bit of tension went out of his face.

As if nothing were at all out of the ordinary, we followed our ritual. "One," I said, and "Two," he said, and our fingers jammed into each other's tests simultaneously. My reflexes were fine, I told myself. Enough time had passed that I'd be showing symptoms by now if I had a live infection.

Probably.

Neither of us said anything when both sets of lights flashed green. We knew what had to happen next, and it didn't involve collapsing in relief just yet. Thankfully, we both still had enough adrenaline pumping through us that we were able to get up. Shaun even found a grin for the cameras before we switched everything off. "That was a good shot," he said, making sure to zoom in on the zombie that had caused the whole mess. It would be a shame to let it go to waste.

"Okay," I said, seeing the look in his eyes once we weren't on display anymore. "We need to get back to the van. Can you drive the bike? I'm pretty shaky."

He could. We managed to bag everything, including sealing the tests and everything else that had blood on it, other than my clothes, which had been thoroughly sprayed down. As an extra precaution, Shaun took off the blood-free shirt he'd torn so I could wear it on top of everything else while we made our way back. It was slow going. I wasn't the only shaky one, and he's a lot more careful with my bike than when he drives the van.

Also thankfully, we'd left the van parked in an area that was almost guaranteed to be secure, even if there weren't many people around. We took a second set of tests to get through the fencing surrounding the vicinity, and a third set to get the van to unlock. By then Buffy had started calling, worried because _she'd_ seen our footage, even if no one else had, and it took Shaun a few minutes to reassure her that I was fine and get her off the line. Ignoring the fact that someone might see us, we both stripped out of our armor and most of our outer layers of clothing, bagging and sealing it all before we climbed in and shut the door.

Adrenaline abandoned us once we were inside. The van was one of the safest places we had in the world, and the sound of the locks engaging made my knees buckle. Shaun was no better off. He made it as far as covering the windows and switching on the interior lights and no further before he was saying my name and pulling me against him. I resisted just long enough to get my sunglasses off; having my face bare meant I could press it against his throat, feeling his pulse against my forehead.

I don't know how long we stayed like that, huddled against the wall. A long time. Not long enough. But we had to get home so we could check in properly with Buffy and demonstrate to our parents that we were both fine, completely fine, by sitting down to dinner with them. With luck they wouldn't realize anything had gone wrong until Shaun blogged about it.

I made the drive back with my hands clenched so hard on the bike's handlebars that they cramped when we pulled into the garage and I had to let go. We didn't touch one another at all in the garage or for the rest of the evening; we took turns in the shower, endured dinner, and got our work done without saying much of anything.

I went to bed early, not long past midnight, and lay awake while Shaun edited and spliced the day's video and sent it off to Buffy. He worked in my room, where we could see each other, and when he was done he slept in my bed, where we could fall asleep touching each other.

He was already at work in his room when I woke in the morning. On the rare occasions when he crashes in my room, he's always up at the crack of dawn and back on his side of the door in case either parent happens to be awake and paying attention to noises in the house.

I could hear him laying down the audio for his report, putting the Irwin spin on my too-close encounter. It was soothing listening, even with the manic edge creeping around the edges of his voice. Only some of what he was saying filtered back to me: "The charming residents of _this_ neighborhood"--something I couldn't make out, and then, with a burst of intensity that drove the words through the wall like nails--"I know all of _you_ back home know the golden rule, so say it with me: 'Do Not Fuck With My Sister'. Not so hard, right? But that's zombies for you--no sense of self-preservation." He was off and running.

I stayed curled up in bed until he was finished, letting him turn it into just one more story. We were alive. Shaun was telling the tale. Everything was exactly as it should be.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (Once again: this chapter, unlike the others, is set between _Feed_ and _Deadline_ and contains major spoilers for _Feed_.)

**5\. SHAUN: The world doesn't stop (November 2040)**

 

_You should check your license dates_ , George announced out of the blue. _I think at least one of them is about to expire, unless you got it renewed while I wasn't looking._

"And we both know how likely _that_ is," I said, flipping to the next page of my magazine. Over the last few months I'd started to see the appeal of living vicariously for the first time in my life. The rocket launcher on the two-page spread in front of me was a work of art--and I was content to view it like a work of art, admiring it without seeing a need to own it. It'd only go to waste in my collection these days, gathering metaphorical dust.

Real dust doesn't gather on my weapons. Old habits die hard, especially if they don't require you to venture outdoors if you don't feel like it. I spend a lot of time cleaning guns, even if the furthest I take most of them is to the apartment two floors above mine that serves as the After the End Times office space.

_If you don't take care of it, you won't be allowed to **own** some of those things, never mind carry them_ , George said. _Are you okay with that? I'm not okay with that._

"Let it go, George." I turned another page, as if she'd believe I was actually concentrating on it.

She let it go for two days, biding her time. It's not like she has anything better to do than plot ways to get me to do what she wants, which is kind of terrifying. Before her death she ran parts of my life, which I was fine with, but she had approximately a million other things going on. Now she's limited to paying attention to whatever happens to me, and even if she's not real, I can't help feeling bad that my life's so fucking boring these days. It's just that feeling bad doesn't make up for a complete lack of interest in doing anything at all.

If I'd had any doubt at all that George is a hallucination--the key witness to and evidence of how badly I'd started coming apart at the seams when she died--I might've almost bought into the ghost theory when Dave swung down to my apartment a couple of days later and said almost exactly what she had. _See?_ George said. _Listen to Dave if you won't listen to me._

"What're the odds of you dropping this?" I asked both of them, not mentioning to Dave that he was retreading ground George had already covered.

"Not great." Dave's apologetic reply overlapped perfectly with George's. _Nonexistent_ , she said, and there was no apology in there.

"Fine," I said. I could _feel_ George's next argument coming together, and it wouldn't be fun if she had to deploy it. She's never been above guilting me into things, and plenty of stuff had gone down with Dave that she could use as leverage, even if he never would. "Set something up at the range. We'll see how things stand."

Three days later, we discovered the way things stood: my aim _sucked_. I hit all the targets decisively enough that I wouldn't need to do it again--which meant my licenses were in the process of auto-renewing as soon as I lowered the last firearm I needed to demonstrate proficiency with--but none of the shots were as clean as I'd like. That stung more than a little. I may not have much in the way of aspirations these days, but I still have some professional pride, even if I've ditched the profession that went with it.

Dave winced, managing to make it look sympathetic instead of embarrassed for me. George wasn't nearly so restrained.

_That is just **sad** , Shaun._

"I'd like to see you do better," I muttered.

_Spectacular comeback. Want me to walk you through the list of reasons why that's a ridiculous thing to say?_

"Not really." She didn't need to. George was a Newsie through and through, so even though she'd been a better shot with a wider variety of weapons than most factual news bloggers, she'd never been anywhere near my skill level.

Then there was the being-dead thing. It's hard to aim without a body.

"Shaun," Dave said, waving a little to catch my attention. "Uh...look, I know you don't want to hear this, but you'd probably do better off the range. Maybe we could head out--off the record," he added hastily. He was a little pale all of a sudden, but he held his ground despite whatever look was on my face. Judging by the look on his face, I'd gone a little scary in one way or another.

I examined my rifle, put the safety on, and slung it over my shoulder. "You're not scared I'll try for suicide-by-zombie?"

"Nope," he replied. "To be honest, boss, it won't surprise me if one of these days we have to wash your blood off the walls, but you're too Irwin to get killed in some boring-ass way and you don't care enough to put in the effort of getting killed in an _interesting_ way."

"Not consciously," I admitted.

"Well, your subconscious mind is Georgia these days," he said quietly. "I trust her to keep an eye on you."

_Somebody has to_ , George put in. _You suck at it._

"Feel free to prove me wrong about your blood on the walls, though. I don't mind if you stay alive to spite me."

"I just might, you asshole."

Some color came back into his face. "You do that. In the meantime, can I talk you into coming out with me tomorrow?"

I hadn't been near a zombie since the day George died, and I had to admit that was probably bad. Even if I never left our apartment building again and stopped digging into the fuckery that'd gotten her killed and started, I don't know, crocheting or something, sooner or later I'd find myself face to face with the undead. It'd suck if my best weapon was a heap of doilies.

Dave didn't have to spell out for me that my intentions of finding whoever was responsible for George's death didn't mesh with staying inside forever and taking up handicrafts. A "training exercise" was the last thing I wanted to do, even if we had no plans to broadcast it at all, but he was right, the bastard. We headed out the next day.

It took us an hour or two to find a good prospect: a trio of zombies on the outskirts of an abandoned zone, either separated from the larger pack or never part of one to begin with. It was a milk run, and I've taken enough people out on those to know the drill. We stood downwind of them while I rattled off a list of options to Dave, not really thinking about what I was saying any more than he was really listening.

None of that was relevant. What I needed was a moving target to get me back on my game, and we had some. Simple as that. Shoot them and go home for coffee--well, Coke, but it was the same idea even if it was toxic sugary swill instead of bitter black goodness.

_Shoot them and you can have coffee_ , George said.

"You can't actually bribe me, you know--" I began, and then the nearest zombie craned its head around. It looked right at me, and I froze. Actually froze.

I stood there like a rock, trying to figure out why. The zombie had been a woman, and not much older than me, from what I could tell. It had been dead long enough that you'd never mistake it for a living person, but not long enough to start coming apart. It was totally average.

It didn't remind me of George, which was a bit of a relief; _I_ hadn't really thought that was a risk, but over the last couple of months I'd overheard both Becks and Dave wondering aloud--usually when they were chatting with Alaric, who was moving in with Dave at the end of the month--and my former therapist had come right out and suggested it. With enough people thinking that might be what was keeping me out of the field, I'd had to at least consider it. So: live zombie not reminding me of my dead sister? Good to know.

George whispered my name comfortingly at the back of my head, and then said, more loudly, _Now you've got to focus._

I shot a look at Dave, who was hanging out nearby, motionless to keep from distracting the zombies. His eyes were worried, but he was still relaxed. He trusted me to take care of things.

The idea of anyone--maybe especially Dave, who knew firsthand how fucking untrustworthy I'd become--trusting me with _anything_ made me laugh out loud. The zombie sped up at the sound, with its companions right behind it.

_Shaun_ , George said.

"I can see it."

_How nice for you. I want you to **care** , asshole._

"I can't." But the zombie was closing, and like I said, old habits die hard. My reflexes kicked in.

I _know_ it was my reflexes, and a lifetime of training, and, yeah, it was that I knew what George would have wanted. But what I heard was the rising urgency in her voice as she said my name again. What I _felt_ was her hand on my wrist, and then it was--not in my hand, exactly. Not that. But it was her gun I was holding, and it was her who took the shot. All I did was watch as the first zombie went down.

The second and third shots were mine, fired mechanically but accurately enough to prove Dave's theory about undead targets being better than inanimate ones. I barely noticed when the zombies dropped; I was too distracted by that fleeting sensation of my sister's touch. I think I would have carved my own heart out on the spot to feel it again.

"George," I said. My voice sounded kind of like I'd been strangled.

I don't know if that was what made Dave come running over. He put an awkward hand on my shoulder and said, "It's not her, Shaun."

I stared down at the first zombie's corpse in its crumpled heap. "I know."

It still didn't remind me of George. It was just a dead zombie, and that part sucked, but no more than it had with the hundreds of other re-deceased zombies I'd stood over. If this one had been lucky, she'd died of something unrelated and never known the feeling of amplifying, of having her mind erode into darkness.

If she'd been _very_ lucky, there was someone out in the world hurting over her absence the way I hurt over George's. I could hope for that, abstractly, but it didn't make me feel anything for her. She was still just a stranger. I'd never heard her voice. I'd never touched her skin or been drunk on the living smell of her. And no matter how crazy I got, I was never going to confuse someone else's death for Georgia's, not with the pattern of every fucking drop of her blood burned into my memory the way it is.

"Were you filming?" I asked Dave.

"Yeah, but I can delete--"

"No. Just upload it to my account."

"Sure, boss."

I studied the corpse, noting where the bullet had hit the skull: an efficient shot, but just a bit too far to the right to be ideal. I'd never figured out why George couldn't learn to compensate for that quarter inch or so. She could make a perfect headshot if she had the time to line it up--she'd shot Buffy that way--but otherwise, that slight veer had been the most predictable thing about her shooting. "Thanks, I think," I said under my breath.

_You're welcome._


End file.
